Applying The Length Approach In English Writing Teaching In Vocational College

Writing is one of the most important skills in language learning.As a productive skill,writing can reflect the language performance of a learner.In the year 2000,Wang put forward the Length Approach(LA)mainly on the basis of Comprehensible Output Hypothesis.By composing essays and using the new way to score and mark,the practice of LA aims to improve students’ self-confidence as well as their language competence.Since then,experiments of LA have been carried out in universities and high schools,and achieved great success.In recent years,teachers in vocational colleges began to research in this area.This study,based on an experiment on LA,aims at positively changing students’ attitude towards writing,bolstering their confidence in writing,and improving their writing competence.The research participants are Grade Two English majors in Jieyang Polytechnic College.Before the experiment,a pre-test of writing was carried out with both experimental and control class and scored by three teachers according to the same criteria.Assuring that both experimental and control class students had the same level of writing ability,LA was employed in experimental class while traditional writing approach was adopted in control class.Both classes were requested to write the same topic for each writing task.But experimental class were encouraged to write as long as possible with the minimum of 150 words,while control class students were required to write their essays ranging from 120 words to 180 words.For marking and feedback,linguistic errors and mistakes were underlined in the writing of control class,with each essay being scored with a number with 15 points as the full score.In experimental class,students’ essays were scored with the criteria of“length & succinctness(40%)+ content(20%)+ discourse structure(20%)+ quality of language(20%)” proposed by Wang(2000).The teacher underlined the good expressions or sentences or new expressions used by students,but linguistic errors and mistakes were seldom marked.Findings show that students in experimental class have positive attitudes towards LA,they have better competence in writing,particularly in syntactic and lexical use,and finally,students’ confidence in writing has been boosted as well.